Thursday, November 2, 2017

Puzzling Discovery: Giant Planet Found Orbiting Tiny Star

An
international group of researchers have discovered a giant planet
orbiting an ultracool dwarf star - the largest planet compared to its
star to ever be found - leaving the researchers baffled at how the
system could have formed. The planet, called NGTS-1b, is about
600 light-years from our solar system and is a gas giant about the size
of Jupiter. On the other hand, its star is just half the mass and radius
of our sun. This planet orbits its star at 3 percent the distance the
Earth orbits the sun, with this planet completing a full orbit every 2.6
Earth days. "The discovery of NGTS-1b was a complete surprise to us —
such massive
planets were not thought to exist around such small stars," Daniel
Bayliss, lead author on the new work and a researcher at University of
Warwick in the United Kingdom, said in the statement. The study further
explained that this was the third time a gas giant had been seen around
such small stars, M-dwarfs - but this planet was by far the largest
found. "NGTS-1b was difficult to find, despite being a monster of a planet,
because its parent star is small and faint," Bayliss said. "Small stars
are actually the most common in the universe, so it is possible that
there are many of these giant planets waiting to be found." "Our challenge is to now find out how common these types of planets are
in the galaxy, and with the new NGTS facility, we are well-placed to do
just that," he added.

Article Compiled By: Kyle Tam

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